Electronic displays may be used to present advertisements and other information. For instance, an electronic display near a road may present advertisements concerning goods or services for sale, and an electronic display in an airport may present flight times. An electronic display that is configured to present advertisements or other information may be referred to as an electronic sign or a digital sign. A digital sign may include one or more display devices in communication with one or more processing devices.
One of the advantages of a digital sign is that it is relatively easy to change the information presented by the sign. For instance, if the display device of a digital sign is driven by a local processing device, and the local processing device can be reconfigured via a remote processing device, the operator of that digital sign may be able to easily change the information that is displayed on the sign from halfway around the world. In addition, digital signs can be configured to automatically change the information being displayed. For instance, a digital sign may be configured to automatically progress through a sequence of advertisements on a periodic basis. And one data processing system may use local area and/or wide area networks to control multiple digital signs.
However, one of the disadvantages of digital signs is that they are subject to failure. For instance, when content for a digital sign is stored on a hard disk drive and the content includes a large amount of data (e.g., moving pictures), presentation of the content may require many reads to the hard disk drive, which may increase the likelihood of disk failure. Also, the processing device that is supposed to drive the display device for a digital sign may pick up a software virus or other malware, and that malware may cause the processing device to malfunction. If there is a failure of the processing device, the display device may respond by going blank, by displaying an error message, or by otherwise failing to display information that is useful for the intended audience of the sign.
A processing device may include a remote management module that provides an out-of band communication channel for network communications. In other words, a remote management module may allow a processing device to send and receive network communications without using the operating system or the central processing unit (CPU) of the processing device. Accordingly, a remote management module may allow the processing device to be serviced from a remote location, despite a nonfunctional operating system. Some processing devices include remote management modules which use the technology known as INTEL Active Management Technology (AMT). Other processing devices use other types of remote management modules.
However, even when a remote management module is used to service a processing device with a nonfunctional operating system, many minutes or hours may be required to get the processing device fixed. A conventional processing device for a digital sign may fail to display information that is useful for the intended audience of the sign for the entire time that the operating system is nonfunctional.
Note: the word “Intel” is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation, and it is presented hereinafter in all capital letters, in accordance with section 608.08(v) of the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP). Also, in this document, forward slashes in uniform resource locators (URLs) have been replaced with the character “=” to avoid live links, in accordance with section 608.01(p) of the MPEP.